Football Banquet Recruiting Visitors

With 18 commitments already in the 2018 class, the list of football banquet recruiting visitors this year is centered more on camaraderie than progress. Even so, there are of course some uncommitted visitors in town who are key targets; unsurprisingly, they’re all at positions of need in this class. The Irish staff will attempt to close on some of them and make a big first impression on others.

Players who have already committed to ND are in italics; rankings are 247 Composite overall/position.

2018 Visitors

S Shayne Simon, #126/#7

DT Jayson Ademilola, #160/#12

CB Kyler Gordon, #210/#21

ATH Braden Lenzy, #212/#10

TE George Takacs, #251/#13

WR Micah Jones, #355/#57

OT Luke Jones, #480/#34 (Arkansas commit)

OLB Ovie Oghoufo, #505/#33

DT Ja’Mion Franklin, #530/#41

DE Justin Ademilola, #587/#31

OT John Dirksen, #597/#46

OT Cole Mabry, #663/#52

SDE Malik Langham, #719/#29

CB DJ Brown, NR/#116 (Virginia commit)

Visitor Notes

Kyler Gordon is the unquestioned headliner as Notre Dame’s top remaining cornerback target. Gordon already took an official visit to the Temple game with his mother. While the Irish are locked in a dogfight with home-state Washington, it speaks volumes that Gordon is visiting again on his own dime. Washington is recruiting Gordon extremely aggressively, but there’s a chance Todd Lyght can close on the highly coveted prospect this weekend.

Former Irish commit Braden Lenzy made some waves this week – he also became a former Oregon commit after Willie Taggart bolted Eugene for Tallahassee. Lenzy will be in town on an official visit this week. Oregon is still in play depending on what happens with their coaching search, and UCLA’s Chip Kelly has recently entered the picture as well. I give the Irish staff credit for taking Lenzy’s call; they’re clearly far less petulant than many fans, myself included. And even some politicians.

Luke Jones has been committed to Arkansas since July, but that commitment is on extremely shaky ground given the upheaval in Fayetteville. Jones took an unofficial visit for the USC game and, like Gordon, his return visit is a pretty good sign for Notre Dame. If you’re curious, taking Jones has (a) nothing to do with how the staff feels about five-star tackle Nick Petit-Frere, and (b) no impact on a spot for Petit-Frere. They would take Petit-Frere, Jones, Mabry, and Dirksen if they could, and probably dance a jig about it too.

Alabaman Malik Langham is a late addition to the list after receiving an offer last week. He’s a high academic kid who is also considering Vandy – although he canceled an official visit to them this weekend and replaced them with Notre Dame, so… He seems very enthusiastic about Notre Dame, but Alabama muddied the waters here with an offer earlier this week. Langham grew up an Auburn fan, so it’s not like this is his childhood dream come true or anything. Even so, Notre Dame going head-to-head with an Alabama kid who Alabama wants? Yeah, I’m not overly optimistic.

DJ Brown is another late offer who immediately set up a visit to Notre Dame, despite his summer commitment to Virginia. Louisville also offered last week, and he already had offers from Missouri and Louisville – a couple of schools who know something about solid DB play. Brown goes to a high school that is very similar to Notre Dame, which could help the Irish here.

Update: Brown was a last minute scratch and will not reschedule. Feel free to read between the lines.

Other Notes

Let’s take a quick look at where the Irish stand with space in the class dwindling. It’ll be an interesting stretch run, for sure.

QB commits: Phil Jurkovec. Targets: None.

RB commits: Jahmir Smith. Targets: None, despite the recent decommitment of Markese Stepp. Of note, Stepp had only good things to say about the Irish staff, and the staff has been working with him for a while to find another landing spot. There’s a lot of mutual respect there.

WDE commits: Justin Ademilola. Targets: None. The purportedly academics-focused Jayson Oweh considered an official visit for the banquet, but nothing came of it. He just added an Alabama offer and is expected to visit them soon, which might put them in his top group with Ohio State and Penn State. Res ipsa loquitor.

ILB commits: Jack Lamb, Bo Bauer. Targets: Solomon Tuliaupupu. USC is still the favorite for Solo, but Notre Dame made a big impression on the family’s visit. And, as has generally been the case throughout history for the prolifically progenerative people of Hibernia, by all accounts the Irish have outworked the Trojans here.

OLB commits: Shayne Simon, Ovie Oghoufo. Targets: Amari Gainer. Gainer actually came off the board in the last couple of days – the Seminole commit was briefly on it after Jimbo left Florida State, but Taggart quickly pulled him back in. Of note here is that Simon is a rover prospect all the way, and Oghoufo could possibly grow into a WDE.

S commits: Derrik Allen, Paul Moala. Targets: None. Floridian BJ Crim looked like a good bet at one point, but it seems now that there won’t be room for him.

CB commits: Joe Wilkins. Targets: Houston Griffith, Kyler Gordon, Julius Irvin, Noah Boykin. How the Irish staff feels about their remaining CB targets is why there’s no room for Crim. Griffith’s eventual commitment seems a question of when, not if. The Irish seem to be in good position with Gordon. Irvin is probably a coin flip at best, but they also are in good position to flip Boykin from Maryland. Quite the derby going on here. And yes, Notre Dame would definitely take six DBs in this class.

Of note, all the current Notre Dame commits are expected to sign on the new early signing day, December 20th. When asked recently about it, Brian Kelly said, “We’re going to recruit you like you’re not committed.” He didn’t say he would dump the prospect, rather that the prospect would be treated as a target who still needed to be recruited. I think that’s a very fair approach, as contrasted with Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi – he basically said the Pitt commits better sign early or else. Or else what, Pat? How much leverage do you have here? Silliness.

Anyway, with the size of the current class and their expected early signing, the Irish staff will be able to devote a ton of focus to the handful of remaining targets for the stretch run. Buckle up, buttercups.

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Great update, thanks for compiling it all. Thrilled to see the secondary falling into place, but a bit worried about that front-7 not really getting too much (outside of DT). Oh well, I suppose we will see what develops and at least they look in a position to finish strong on a bunch of these cases it seems.

The DE situation is not ideal, certainly. We’re in better shape on the roster than people tend to think – Jay Hayes is here next year, Daelin Hayes, Okawara, and Kareem all have two years of eligibility left, Ogundeji has three, and Wardlow and MacCollister each have four. Daelin, Okwara, and Kareem all look like major contributors and Ogundeji looked respectable in limited action, which provides a bit of cushion. But we could use a couple of bodies there.

I’ll be very interested to see how Wardlow develops – if he can make a little bit of noise next year, that should relieve a lot of depth chart stress. I’m not sure MacCollister will ever be a front line player, but we’ll see what happens there. Strangely, for ND at least, SDE is much more of a need in this class than WDE – we have Justin Ademilola, and Oghoufo or Lamb could potentially develop into a WDE – which is why I’m hopeful we can make some strides with Langham. If we don’t I wouldn’t be shocked to see us take a run at another guy down the stretch.

My guess for a good yet realistic close would be Petit-Frere, Jones, Lenzy/Keys (first man in), Griffith, Gordon, and Boykin. I don’t have a high degree of confidence in ASB, Langham, Tuliaupupu, Tremble, or Irvin, but crazier things have happened.

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1 year ago

hooks orpik

That sounds like a great haul if it all sorts out. I guess Petit-Frere has played very quiet, if he does jump on that would be exciting.

And you may be right about the front of the defense, I’m just not that excited for it. Seems more “passable” than a team strength, and most top 5 teams, it’s a team strength. Is what it is in some regards, and like you said there’s reasons to be optimistic that at least it could/should be stronger for Notre Dame than recent years, but I miss the days of Tuitt, Nix, Kapron-Moore where it could be a strong point.

I typed out a long response, but in the interest of sanity I’ll condense it to this: I think you’re selling this DL substantially short by tagging their play “passable.” Also, there have been more talented starting groups – 2012, for example – but there’s more talent in the two-deep than we’ve had in recent memory. I think the DL was easily the strongest unit on defense this year and probably will be again next year.

Back to the recruiting discussion, I think we can survive an underwhelming DE class in this class, even with Wardlow and MacCollister in the last class, but then we really, *really* need to hit on DE in 2019. We seem to be making some good inroads there, but, you know, ‘crootin.

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1 year ago

hooks orpik

Fair enough, points taken on increased strength. I tend to be a bit bearish on some until they actually can show it on the field, and might be discounting progression and gains that can/will be made in the next 8-9 months as well, so I hope your rosier outlook is accurate!

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1 year ago

nd09hls12

If my basic addition is right, that would make for a 25-man class. Is that the plan? IIRC from an earlier post, that’d put the roster at a pretty high number and we’d need some not-insignificant attrition even beyond the expected NFLers, right?

Supposedly the staff is shooting for 25. We’re currently at 18 with about 90 targets left (give or take), so it seems like a decent shot at least that they’ll hit it. In any event the floor for the 2018 class is probably 24.

Right now, with the 18 commits and all fifth years returning, we’d be at 91. Without rehashing all the details from the other day, we should be right at 85 after the potential fifth years are pared down, assuming no early declarations for the draft.

That means that any additional recruit would require roster attrition of some sort; I could probably pick out 3-4 guys that I think would fall off for one reason or another, but I’m not sure how we’ll get to 6-7.

The staff is clearly being really aggressive down the stretch, though, so either they have it figured out already or they are confident they’ll be able to.

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1 year ago

nd09hls12

Interesting – frankly, I kind of like the aggressiveness. No need to be shy with guys who will likely never play; I think it’s in everybody’s interest to let them know that and let the chips fall as they may (i.e., if they want to actually play football, they’re welcome to transfer).

Great stuff with the post/comments – thanks for pulling it all together!

Where the results will fall no one knows, but this is supremely high praise for BK and the rest of the coaching staff.

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1 year ago

nd09hls12

“We’re going to straighten out Wimbush” is the BK-est quote perhaps ever.

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1 year ago

Russell Knox

Great work Brendan. I loved it. I loved what St Brown had to say about BK and the staff too.

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1 year ago

MTI98

That article is an emotional roller coaster! You can read it and believe ND will have both St. Brown brothers on campus next year. Then you can read it again and convince yourself ND will have neither.

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1 year ago

nd09hls12

Twitter informs me that Tranquill and Weishar will be back, which is fantastic (particularly the former given our LB situation).

Yeah, that’s really big. But Twitter also informs me that Coney is not committed to being back, so may be six of one/half dozen the other. At least as of right now, if Coney and (to a much lesser degree of importance) Bonner come back, the defense next year would at least at first glance appear to be… really good? Maybe not super deep, but basically all but 1.5 starters returning off of the S&P+ 30th defense seems pretty good.

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1 year ago

hooks orpik

Coney had some quotes that he put in for his draft grade to get an evaluation on where he stands and maybe even what he needs to improve and that he was leaning to respecting the answer he got. Seems like the expectation is he’ll be told to stay in school and apparently he’s influenced a lot by Lea who can probably sell him on why his senior year will benefit him, which it probably will.

I read somewhere (maybe Sampson?) that Bonner isn’t expected back and that Daniel Cage is almost certainly finished as well, also expected but sad. And Tillery had a chance at the banquet to announce he was coming back like Tranquill but declined. Who knows if anything is there or not but d-line seems again like the biggest worry there.

Of course that doesn’t preclude him from being recruited back, but not great. Still, a starting front four of Hayes, Tillery, MTA, and Hayes is pretty solid (though would prefer to have Bonner back for depth and experience if he’s willing to change his mind). If both Bonner *and* Tillery leave, there’s a major issue, even with Elijah Taylor back. That Dew-Treadway/Tiassum/Taylor miss/miss/basically-a-miss was pretty bad.

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1 year ago

Scarponi

Geordon Porter just decommitted. Anyone know if this is a sign of an unannounced commitments that he doesn’t want to compete against (I’m hoping), or something else?

I think it’s just him moving on. Honestly, I was surprised he announced for us – I thought he was trending to ASU. The fact that all their assistants stayed on might have made them more attractive to him.

I don’t think we’re that close with any other receivers. Lenzy will still check out Oregon and UCLA, Keys isn’t deciding anything until after his visit in January, and ASB and Cota are probably staying out west. So no, I highly doubt there’s a silent commit that forced Porter out.